Why Casinos are Becoming Like Landfills

Americans still love to gamble. They just don't want casinos near where they live

By Jon Marcus/Boston

Dec. 23, 2013

Milford, Massachusetts at the holidays looks a lot like Bedford Falls, the fictional setting of the classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Settled in 1662, the town of 27,000 still has working farms, its own daily newspaper, a baseball diamond behind the American Legion Hall and an annual picnic. On Memorial and Veteran’s days, parades run down a Main Street lined with white wooden churches and historic buildings made of red brick and locally quarried pink granite.

But it’s visions of Pottersville, the film’s alternate-universe world of greed, strip clubs, pawnshops, and hopelessness that have been on residents’ minds this season.

Wary of increased crime and traffic and depressed property values, Milford voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal for a $1 billion, 24-hour casino in November, becoming the sixth Massachusetts community to say no since voters statewide opened the way for three slot parlors or casinos in 2011.

“It didn’t take long to be convinced that this was not good for a small town,” says Steve Trettel, co-chair of the group Casino-Free Milford. “If you want to get right down to the root of it, that’s really it.”

While there’s been no slowdown in the pace at which states continue to approve adding or expanding casinos and slot machine parlors, they are starting to run into trouble finding places to put them.

In addition to the cities and towns in Massachusetts, which included a neighborhood in Boston, new or expanded gambling venues have been voted down in Portland, Oregon, Newport, Rhode Island and Biddeford, Lewiston, and Washington County, Maine. In early December, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick filed suit to block a native-American tribe from opening a casino on toney Martha’s Vineyard.

Across the nation, community and business interests are pushing back against the possibility of new casinos. In Central Florida, powerful interests including the Walt Disney Company, intent on preserving the region’s reputation as a family destination, have organized to prevent the state legislature from adding casinos there. Even in South Florida, which has been more accepting of gambling, local officials are raising concerns about plans to expand an existing casino operated by a Native American tribe, citing the potential for spillover traffic and crime.

A federal application submitted by another Native American tribe to build a casino in the upstate New York town Union Springs is being fought by a coalition that includes the state’s senior Senator, Chuck Schumer, on the grounds that it would bring unfair competition for local businesses. Even Massachusetts Governor Patrick, who signed the bill to legalize casinos there, has said that he would vote against one if it were ever proposed for the Berkshires town where he has a second home.

This resistance is not because Americans don’t want to gamble. In the last 10 years, the nationwide revenue from casino gambling has grown from $29 billion to more than $37 billion, according to the American Gaming Association, which represents the casino industry.

Massachusetts residents alone spent an estimated $850 million last year in casinos in neighboring states, according to the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

And 61 percent of them still like the idea of having casinos in the state, a survey by the Western New England University Polling Institute found.

They just don’t appear to want gambling near where they live. The same poll found that 55 percent of Bay State adults oppose casinos in their own communities.

“There is definitely some of that ‘not in my back yard’ going on,” says David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. “It seems that people are comfortable with the idea of casinos, but once they get into the specifics of, this is where it’s going to go and this is what it’s going to look like and this is how it’s going to affect my commute, they may be having second thoughts.”

Not every community is hostile to casinos. Several in Massachusetts have voted to allow them, including one on the site of a former chemical plant and one at a former greyhound racing track. In Philadelphia and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, casinos have been approved to replace a hazardous waste site and an abandoned factory.

“What’s clearly going on here is that the communities that have approved these are much poorer communities” than the likes of Milford, says Richard McGowan, a professor of economics at Boston College and a casino expert. When they consider the alternatives—“a prison, a nuclear power plant—most people think that casinos overall are good for a community when they replace things that are tired or old,” says Bob Jarvis, a gaming expert and law professor at Nova Southeastern Law School in Florida.

Other casinos are in largely nonresidential neighborhoods of cities such as New Orleans, on remote tribal land free from the authority of voters and elected local officials, or in rural areas. But as more are proposed in densely populated states, gaming experts say, finding places to put them is becoming more contentious.

“Overall, people are not uncomfortable with gaming,” says Steve Rittvo, a principal with the casino consulting firm the Innovation Project Group. “But people also realize that you don’t necessarily need to be the host community to get that spinoff of the impacts of it.”


Read more: Massachusetts Casinos: Gambling's NIMBY Problem | TIME.com http://nation.time.com/2013/12/23/why-casinos-are-becoming-like-landfills/#ixzz2on3LgeaK

REPEAL THE CASINO DEAL may make ballot

Casino, gas tax increase repeals may make ballot

By Michael Levenson

| Globe Staff November 29, 2013

Major casino and gas tax initiatives designed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for transportation, local aid, and other needs could be undone by Massachusetts voters at the ballot box next year.

Secretary of State William F. Galvin said two proposals — one that would repeal the state’s casino law and another that would eliminate automatic increases in the state gas tax — are among seven ballot questions that appear to have garnered enough signatures to qualify for the November 2014 ballot.

The proposals would allow voters to eradicate two key items that state lawmakers and Governor Deval Patrick spent years devising. The ballot questions would also have serious implications for the state budget, which relies on gambling and gas revenue to pay for road and bridge projects and basic services such as trash pickup in cities and towns.

“It would force difficult choices to be made,” said Stephen M. Brewer, a Barre Democrat who is the state Senate’s budget chief. “We would be governed by what the vox populi says.”


Supporters of the ballot questions say they were able to gather enough signatures by tapping into a deep vein of anger over the legalization of casinos and at the prospect of automatic increases in the gas tax — two items that were championed by Patrick.

“It’s a taxpayer revolt,” said Steven W. Aylward, a Republican activist from Watertown and leader of the Tank the Gas Tax coalition.

David Guarino, a spokesman for the group Repeal the Casino Deal, said the coalition also harnessed voter discontent.

“We know from experience that David doesn’t often topple Goliath, but we have the deep-pocketed casino industry on the ropes, and we think voters deserve the chance to deliver the final blow,” Guarino said.

Tank the Gas Tax, a group made up of Republican lawmakers and activists, is pushing to repeal a law approved earlier this year that triggers automatic increases in the tax when inflation rises.

The measure was part of a larger tax increase that raised the gas tax from 21 cents to 24 cents per gallon.

The ballot question would leave that 3 cent per gallon increase intact, but would prevent future increases tied to inflation.

The governor and Legislature pushed the gas tax increase to help fund repairs to deteriorating roads and bridges, and to expand rail and bus lines. State officials say that linking the gas tax to inflation will generate $5.7 million for the state next year and then grow annually to about $183 million in 2024.

But Aylward’s group says the law flies in the face of basic democratic principles, by eliminating the need for legislators to vote every time they increase taxes.

“They’re changing the paradigm, and they want the taxes to be automatic,” Aylward said. “That removes the accountability for elected officials, and that’s what’s so infuriating to people.”
Aylward said volunteers gathered more than 100,000 signatures — well beyond the 68,911 needed — to place the gas-tax repeal on the 2014 ballot. Galvin said the signatures are still being certified, but he agreed the referendum is “running up a pretty good surplus” and should qualify for the ballot.

Brewer asserted that it would be a mistake to repeal the gas tax law. He said that linking the tax to inflation guarantees that it does not lose its purchasing power as the cost of goods rises.

“The cost of steel never goes down, road materials — because they’re fossil-fueled based — never go down, and labor costs don’t go down,” he said. “And, we hadn’t adjusted our share of the gas tax in 23 years.”

The ballot question that would repeal the 2011 casino law is facing a tougher road.

Galvin said the question appears to have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. But Attorney General Martha Coakley has ruled that the question would violate the Constitution by taking away the contract rights of companies that applied for casino licenses, without compensating them for their losses.

Repeal the Casino Deal is challenging her ruling in the Supreme Judicial Court, and says it is hopeful that, if it prevails, it can build on the recent string of defeats that casino proposals were dealt in elections in East Boston, Palmer, and Milford.

“We remain hopeful and optimistic, though we know we have a long road to go to reverse this ill-advised casino deal,” Guarino said.

Brewer said outlawing casinos would pose a serious challenge for the state, which is counting on $300 million to $500 million in future gambling revenue to help pay
for police officers and firefighters, among other essential services.


The Patrick administration declined to comment on the ballot questions and referred instead to comments the governor made on Nov. 20, when he was asked about the cities and towns that have rejected casino proposals.

“No, I don’t think the law should be repealed,” Patrick said then. “It’s working exactly as it’s supposed to, which is to authorize up to three destination resort licenses and one ‘Racino,’ I guess it’s called, and to let local communities make decisions about whether they wanted the facilities on their own.”

He doesn't want a casino in his town!

Five other questions appear to have qualified for the ballot, Galvin said.

A question sponsored by environmental groups would extend the nickel deposit on soft drinks to noncarbonated beverages such as water, iced tea, and juice.

Four union-backed proposals would raise the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $10.50; allow workers to earn up to 40 hours a year in paid sick time; establish limits on the number of hospital patients assigned to each nurse; and seek to curb hospital operating margins and pay for hospital executives.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/11/29/voter-anger-propels-ballot-questions-repeal-casino-law-and-automatic-gas-tax-increases/9Ua9MQjkUnmdQq7NlwvJSI/story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline


Casino law’s foes are still in the game
By Shirley Leung | Globe Columnist
November 29, 2013

Here’s an early Christmas gift from me to all you casino opponents out there: The repeal could be real.

For months now, you have been furiously collecting signatures to get on the 2014 ballot to repeal our nascent casino law, even hiring about 20 people to stand in front of supermarkets. Well, last week you turned in over 90,000 signatures, and now the secretary of state says Repeal the Casino Deal appears to have the necessary signatures to move forward in the referendum process.

Of course, anything having to do with casinos in our state is complicated. Attorney General Martha Coakley dealt you an unexpected blow in September when her office ruled that repealing the casino law is unconstitutional. You appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, and that’s where you and the attorney general will likely square off.

Do you have a chance? You bet. There’s enough gray to fill a book with at least 50 shades.

“My first reaction: It sounds very thorny to me,” said former Justice John Greaney, who spent 20 years on the SJC and now teaches law at Suffolk University. “The only definitive way to settle that would be an opinion from my old court.”

Peter Sacks, a senior attorney and state constitutional expert in Coakley’s office, wrote in an 11-page decision that when casino companies pay substantial fees to apply for gaming licenses it’s an implied contract — and there’s an expectation that the gaming commission will award them. Contract rights are considered property, and as such, he noted, they may not be “taken” by an initiative petition.

But others disagree. Applicants may have paid a $400,000 fee to compete for a gaming license, and that might seem like a contract, but the casino law makes it clear the commission doesn’t have to hand out a slot parlor license or any of the three resort casino licenses. Because of that, applicants know they may go through the process and end up with nothing. They also know that once awarded a license, the commission can revoke or suspend it at any time.

“There is some kind of room for interpretation here,” said Lawrence Friedman, a professor at New England Law who wrote the book on the Massachusetts state constitution. (For real — it’s 245 pages long.) “The attorney general’s current opinion hangs on the conclusion that the casino applicants have an implied contract with the Commonwealth. Whether the applicants actually have such an interest is debatable.”

Greaney believes the SJC will deal with this case right away, given that the commission wants to hand out licenses by the spring. If the court sides with the repeal group, Greaney says, the commission may choose to suspend the licensing process until the ballot outcome because there would be so much uncertainty.

Ouch. For the pro-casino folks, Greaney just sounded like the Grinch who stole Christmas.

“I am sure they have thought about it,” he said of the possibility of delaying licenses. If the commission waits until the ballot passes, “it’s going to be a much bigger mess.”

Here, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. Even if the SJC allows the petition to move forward, there are still more steps. Proposed ballot petitions are sent in January to the Legislature, which has until the first week of May to decide whether to trump voters and change laws in question preemptively. If no action is taken, proponents must gather another 11,485 signatures by July to get on the November ballot. Then, of course, there’s a vote.

To gambling opponents, the casino law has been an unwanted gift but with no easy return policy.


http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/11/29/repeal-casino-law-could-real/VWDattx0Zy9NgkmQ1gyyeO/story.html

Dirty Energy and the Party of NO

As the rest of the world marches forward with sensible energy policies and China aggressively pursues manufacturing and installation of alternative energy production to ensure their energy independence and their global leadership, the U.S. is stuck in same old-same old reactionary Dirty Energy policies and massive subsidies for pollution. Pity!


Wind farm foe gave $100,000 to aid GOP

A month ago, as the battle over a proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound was being heard by state regulators, William I. Koch, the fossil fuel magnate and Cape Cod summer resident, donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association.

Koch, a longtime opponent of Cape Wind and cochairman of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, made the donation in part to support Republican Charles D. Baker, another Cape Wind opponent, in the race for governor.

“It’s no secret we oppose Cape Wind,’’ said Brad Goldstein, a spokesman for Koch at the Oxbow Group, the $4 billion fossil fuel conglomerate that Koch runs from his Florida home.

Baker has called the proposal a “sweetheart deal’’ among state officials, Cape Wind, and electricity provider National Grid. He has been aided in his campaign by more than $5 million in spending by the governors association.

Cape Wind, for its part, has financially supported Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat and avid supporter of the proposal. Two officials have made numerous direct contributions to the governor and his running mate, Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray. They have not, however, made any recent contributions to the Democratic Governors Association, which has provided more than $3 million for ads produced by an outside group supporting Patrick.

Cape Wind president James S. Gordon has given a total of $2,500 to Patrick since 2005 and another $1,000 to Murray, according to campaign finance records. He has also given $10,500 to the Democratic State Committee, which is helping Patrick in his run for governor.

In addition, Mitchell H. Jacobs, Gordon’s partner at Energy Management Inc., Cape Wind’s developer, has given $1,500 to Patrick, $1,000 to Murray, and another $2,000 to the Democratic State Committee. He also donated $250 to Baker this year.

Still, Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind, said Koch’s six-figure donation to the Republican Governors Association is evidence that his financial interest in fossil fuels is driving his fight against the wind energy proposal. “The public has a right to know that oil and coal money has been fueling the opposition’s misinformation campaign against an offshore wind farm,’’ Rodgers said.

But Goldstein said Koch’s opposition has nothing to do with his business interests. Instead, he said, it is based on Koch’s status as a summer homeowner in Osterville, his passion for sailing — Koch won the 1992 America’s Cup race — and his belief that the proposal is bad for ratepayers.

“Bill thinks it’s a boondoggle for Jim Gordon,’’ Goldstein said. “He wants to see the sound preserved, and he definitely has some homeowner interest.’’

In addition, Goldstein said Koch’s donation to the association was also meant to help Republican gubernatorial candidates across the country — including incumbent Rick Perry in Texas, and Meg Whitman in California, where Oxbow has significant business interests. Oxbow has more than 300 employees working at three facilities in Texas, for example. It conducts no operations in New England.

The battle over Cape Wind, potentially the nation’s first offshore wind farm, has raged for much of the last decade, pitting proponents of renewable energy against preservationists and some prominent Cape Cod homeowners, including Koch and the late Edward M. Kennedy.

The Department of Public Utilities held public hearings on the proposal in September and is expected to reach a decision by mid-November. If the agency approves the deal, which is projected to raise customers’ monthly electricity rates by about 2 percent, opponents will be able to appeal to the state’s Supreme Judicial Court.

In the meantime, both sides have pushed their respective causes in the political arena, making donations designed to influence the hotly contested race for governor and collectively spending about $4 million to lobby members of Congress.

Since the early 2000s, the Alliance and Cape Wind have each spent about $1.5 million dollars on their lobbying efforts. In addition, Oxbow, which is privately held, paid $1 million to a lobbying firm that worked against the Cape Wind proposal from 2005 to 2007, when Kennedy was seeking to kill it.

Federal records show that much of Oxbow’s $1 million was spent to directly influence the outcome of the wind farm debate. But they also show that the lobbying firm, US Strategies, worked on other issues, such as tax credits and other matters that Goldstein said might have included Oxbow’s international shipping interests.

Oxbow is a collection of more than two dozen companies with 15 locations across the United States and two dozen more spread out over five continents, according to Oxbow’s website. Its primary businesses are mining and the sale of coal, natural gas, and petroleum. It is also the world’s largest distributor of petroleum coke, a solid fuel that is a byproduct of the oil refining process.

Oxbow is unrelated to Koch Industries, the Wichita-based energy conglomerate owned by Koch’s two brothers, Charles and David, both of whom are prodigious funders of libertarian causes. Oxbow’s William Koch waged a bitter legal battle against his brothers during the 1980s and 1990s, contending he was cheated when he sold his stake in their company.

The Cape Wind proposal — which calls for 130 turbines, each 440 feet high, to be built over 24 square miles in Nantucket Sound — has also become an issue in the race between Attorney General Martha Coakley, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger, James P. McKenna.

In August, Coakley garnered headlines when she urged the Department of Public Utilities to approve an agreement between Cape Wind and National Grid, after she negotiated a 10 percent reduction in the price of power from the turbines.

McKenna, for his part, has urged the agency to reject the deal, saying it will be too costly for ratepayers. He has criticized Coakley for accepting $4,800 in campaign contributions from Cape Wind’s Gordon during her unsuccessful campaign to fill Kennedy’s US Senate seat.

“Jim Gordon stands to personally profit greatly from Coakley’s continued political power,’’ McKenna said in a statement.

But campaign records show that Gordon hedged his bets, giving $4,800, the combined legal maximum in the primary and general elections, to both Coakley and US Representative Michael E. Capuano, another candidate in the Democratic primary.

Jacobs, Gordon’s business partner, gave $1,000 to Coakley.

Brian C. Mooney off the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Christy Mihos: Tilting At Windmills? Or NIMBY?

cct offered --


Mihos needs to cut ties with anti-wind farm bloc
Christy is still tilting at the windmill
By Ron LaBonte.

Massachusetts could use a man like Christy Mihos who, if elected governor, would shake up the status quo on Beacon Hill and likely lower taxes.

However, in my opinion, he’ll never make governor if he continues to align himself with William Koch, Glen Wattley and the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. I wonder if Mr. Mihos has read Dennis Duffy’s Sept. 21 “My View” in the Cape Cod Times. Many thinking people have read it.

Why kill your chances of being governor for the sake of not having to look at the tops of wind turbines 6 miles away?

Ron LaBonte, Chatham
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Christy Mihos had cute ads for his last run, but that's as far as his substance went.

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He has stood with the wealthy NIMBYs to oppose a wind project that simply makes sense, against overwhelming public support because his ocean view would be spoiled.

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Shake up the status quo on Beacon Hill ?

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He'd likely add his own moneyed brand of "status quo."

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After standing with his wealthy buddy Koch, defending Mountaintop Removal, ignoring the threat of Coal Ash, the Commonwealth surely needs another wealthy, tone deaf Governor to protect his own interests, environment be damned!

NIMBYism

In reply to Senator Kennedy's NIMBY Legacy, Chris Kaiser left the following comment:

Great post. I hate hypocrites who support NIMBY. I linked to this article in my most recent NIMBY post. Let me know what you think!

http://blog.mapawatt.com/2009/07/15/nimby-chasing-a-legacy/

LINK

Chris has a lot of solid information posted on the right side of his blog, written in simple terms for people like me to comprehend. Take a look at some of his ideas. His blog has been added to links on the right. Check it out for energy saving ideas.